Stop in the Name of Love
by Elyan White
Summary: Jim is accused of stealing from the royal Argentum castle and becomes a criminal hunted kingdom-wide, not knowing that the whole thing is a set-up by the incredibly extra king who wants to ask him out face-to-face.
1. Chapter 1

Stop In the Name of Love (Before I Break Your Window, Come Into Your House, and Beat the Hell Out of You)

* * *

Jim Hawkins wasn't the sort to do bad things.

Well, alright, Jim wasn't the sort to do _stupid_ things-the sort who did bad things _badly_. The things Jim did were nefariously, maddeningly, _clever_ , and never things that would get him caught.

Jim invented fertilizers for sweet old Mrs. Robin's tulip garden that let off pheromones to aggravate the native bees whenever the local delinquents went stomping through it. Jim used a homemade sound-magnifier to listen through the dormitory walls of the local academy to ferret out the students who cheated on tests (there was no harm in thinning the competition, even when you were as bright as Jim Hawkins). Jim burned a hole in the back pocket of a bachelor (who refused to believe Jim's mother wasn't looking just because she was single) with only a belt-buckle, a mirror, a third-story window, and plenty of spite.

He had never, _ever_ gotten caught.

So of course it would be something he _didn't_ do that would get him caught in the end.

Something that put his face on all hundred "wanted" posters that had made it from the kingdom's capital to small town Montressor, one of which was slowly crumpling in Jim's hand. He'd torn them down wherever he'd seen them, and the paper strips were still dangling from the Benbow Eatery's billboard to show where he'd found it.

Unfortunately, not before the Benbow's owner had found it-the owner who happened to be Sarah Hawkins, the mother Jim came home to every day from classes at the academy.

"Jim, you've really gone too far this time," she was insisting furiously, hands akimbo amid the overturned chairs she'd been putting up for the evening. She was furious only because she would be crying otherwise. Jim was furious, too, but only because he was furious.

"You'll be expelled from Argentum, and the only way we ever got you there was with your test scores paying half the way-"

Also Jim would be _arrested_ , but clearly she wasn't letting herself think that far, because if Jim was _arrested_ , then…

"I'm not going to be arrested," Jim blurted out desperately. As soon as he realized he'd done it-for his own benefit, really-he mentally slapped himself. His mother cut herself off sharply and stared at him, strained. Jim's tongue stumbled a moment around his mouth.

"I mean, I'm...I've never even _been_ to the capital! There can't be any witnesses!"

Well, he had, _once_ , on a sponsored academy field trip, but that was only for a day and that had been months ago. And obviously there _were_ witnesses, if there was a portrait of him.

Jim's skin always felt hot around his face when he was doubting himself. With his mother studying him so harshly, he felt like he might be sunburning. He got hotter.

"And…and anyway, I must have been set up!"

Jim brandished the poster in front of him. It uncurled sweatily from his hand and he straightened it impatiently. He didn't look like that. Jim blinked, held the paper up to the light; squinted- _did_ he look like that?

Who had even drawn this picture? The artistry was of an expert quality, obviously capital-employed, but despite its unmistakable imitation of Jim's face, down to the distinctive deep angles his cheekbones made beneath his eyes and the almost-frown of concentration he wore so frequently, it looked like someone's fanciful rebel daydream. Since when had Jim's haircut been that side-shorn and roguish? Since when had Jim's shoulders been that hearty and muscle-corded? He was a scholar, not a fighter.

From his mother came a shaking gust of a sigh. She wrung her dishtowel through her hands, over and over, half-muttering a lecture or a frightened diatribe.

"Being human in Argentum is hard enough as it is, you know our business can't keep up with everything the Fel or the Ave can do-"

She wasn't shouting, at least. And she still hadn't cried. Even in her complete despair (not far removed from hysteria), Mrs. Hawkins always kept a sort of tight-mouthed reserve that never let her voice get too loud or her will too weak. She fell apart only one piece at a time, and never all at once. This might have been the closest she'd ever come, maybe even the closest since Jim's father had left, but Jim knew it was only because the Benbow was falling apart nearly as much as she was. It had been in need of repairs and funds to make them with for years-even the bulb Jim had held the incriminating leaf of paper was scratched and badly flickering.

She hadn't mentioned anything about proving his innocence, though. A pang of alarm went through Jim, followed closely by a pang of hurt. "Mom, you believe me, right?"

She blinked out of her thoughts, dishtowel still tightly twisted against her apron. She started to speak, shook her head, and bit at her lip. "The only mercy is that your name isn't on this," was all she eventually said. Jim was stung.

"What does it even say I _stole_?" Jim tried to shuffle the paper straight again-he'd clenched his fist around it unconsciously-and his mother snatched it away from his frustrated efforts, stepping to the light of an unshuttered window for help in deciphering its sweat-smeared ink.

"'A personal effect of King Longinus's'," Mrs. Hawkins read off-as decreed by King Argentum, who was apparently besides the ruler of their country a giant bloody idiot.

"You see!" Jim pounced, stabbing his finger and nearly cracking one of the café's old floorboards with the force of his stomping. "There's no way I could have been in the castle! Who would have even let me in to Argentum Castle?"

Argentum was the oldest, most rumored and most revered blood of the whole kingdom-its founding rulers. (Well, not the oldest. Somewhere in the murky history of the kingdom's founding the name _Flint_ seemed to surface occasionally, but no one really talked about that.) Somewhere in his head, Jim was always in a bit of a tiff with the King of Argentum. _If you were going to put such a ridiculous tariff_ , Jim would imagine himself saying smugly while he read the latest on harbor exports, _you shouldn't have put it on such a ridiculous product._

 _You're right,_ the king would admit, shame-faced. _But I am royalty and must do ridiculous things for no reason._

Jim imagined this more than most boys his age imagined what household items they could fit their penises into, but he was sure that didn't mean anything.

Why the king? Because authority was an easy target, and Jim lived an entire suppressed life of petty rebellion under rules. Also because the king-His Highness _Longinus Ionathan Argentum_ -was, well, an Argentum. _The_ Argentum, the very symbol of their country, above any other race of Fel, who was unmistakable for the lumbering feline languor of a big cat-the pride cat, the lion: the greatest, proudest strain of the noble kingdom.

 _The hunter_.

"Jim." His mother was pleading now, she moved forward and took him by the arms, leaning close in her intensity and shaking him with each word. "They will hunt you down. You'll be caught. Who knows what will happen if you're tried? There's no reason you should even be a suspect to begin with! And who will listen to the people from Montressor, especially about a _human_ living with them?"

"I won't get caught," said Jim, "if I get there _first_. I'll prove my innocence, to the king himself!"

Sarah's fingers stopped pulling and, instead, _seized_. "Jim, do you think you can just walk in and demand an audience with the king?"

But Jim was wild in his anger. "I'll _fight_ in if I have to," he retorted, adrenaline-flushed and purpose-pointed.

And right then, he meant it.

Jim Hawkins (much to his own chagrin had he known it), was meanwhile the same topic of discussion in a closed castle conference room miles away in the grand capital city of Argentum, nearly a full day's travel away from Montressor on foot (for the winged Ave, it could be halved, and the swiftest Fel could make it in a third).

Around a deeply mahogany table of the utmost expense in import, the King Argentum and his guards' Captain conferred on matters of utmost importance. The heavy claws of the towering, lazy-eyed king (one eye intelligent black and the other studded over with a ruby-set metal cap) tapped over the wood with veiled impatience.

* * *

 **Oh, it gets worse. Here's one for the boys, and for I guess you too.**

 **Cheers!**


	2. Chapter 2

"It's been nearly three months, Cap'n Amelia. I don't know who he is, but I want that boy found."

Carefully at attention, the Captain, decked in the gold-trimmed cobalt coat of her rank, frowned with faint disapproval-although she was the type of individual whose faintest expressions could be read like messages from the stars over every feature of her face. "Do you not think you may have been too hasty in sending out 'wanted' posters? It makes him sound like a criminal, no matter how you view it."

The king's broad, golden-furred face creasing into genuine indignance. "Oh, he ain't a criminal," he said. "Gust too bright a lad, is all."

 _Utmost_ importance.

Primly groomed and with not a single sash or buckle out of place, the Captain Amelia gave a deep sigh that flattened her ears. "Why must you insist upon speaking like a…a _rapscallion_ , Majesty? You idle far too much of your time down at the ports."

Not nearly as much time as Longinus would like, they both knew. The king creaked back in his chair, smiling wide with his pointed teeth. "Ahh, but that's where all the interestin' and _unusual_ things come in, now, isn't it?"

The Fel Captain rapped the hilt of her rapier smartly against the table's edge (it never left her hip). "It is my opinion, sir, that you have far too many interesting and unusual items of business to deal with to possibly want to be finding more. You know, I hear that Ara mercenary Scroop is _already_ set after some bounty on the nameless boy and won't be satisfied with believing there isn't one."

That made the lazing king sit straight up in his chair, with more speed and fluid reflex than would be expected of his size. "Scroop," he repeated. "That nasty blood-hunter? Bounty? I don't want to hear either of those words anywhere near our mystery boy."

The rapier hilt rapped again. "Well, perhaps if it had not been your choice to _publicly distribute damning documents_ , then at least some of this might have been avoided." The Captain was tart in reprimand. "As a matter of fact, _all_ of it might have been avoided."

"I had to take _some_ sorta action, at this point." Argentum slapped a hand to his knee. "Barely three months past, and me out disguised fiddlin' with one of Flint's strange old doodads from under the city. Been at it for hours when this handsome, sorta focused-looking lad with a pretty drastic haircut walks up, bold as you please, takes it right out o' my hand and gives it a twist or two. Next thing I know, the damned thing's open to the world! And not a sign o' him since. I don't even know his _name_."

The Fel huffed in irritation. "But now this mess-why's Scroop gotta be involved in the heart o' things all the time?"

Amelia coughed delicately. "That would be because you make your decisions with unwise and unnecessary haste, your Majesty, especially when you least need to," she said, with an acerbic tongue. "And often while _drunk_. Some unsavory character is bound to catch hold of the boy soon enough."

But the king waved a dismissive hand. "Not if I bring the lad in first," he said, with a grinning leer. "No one's a better hunter than ol' Silver."

Amelia started. "You mean to say you plan on going after him yourself?"

"Disguised, o' course."

After a spell of silence, the Captain pinched her eyes shut to prevent her headache from encroaching any further to her temples. "It very highly fascinates me that you have not yet been assassinated."

Longinus- _Silver_ -chuckled, with all his body and belly. "Your words as pretty of the rest of you, Cap'n." He worked his way out from the chair and table-really, toy-like compared to him. "I'll leave business here to you."

But the Captain stood up straighter. "Your Majesty. Do you mind revealing exactly what you would have me believe this man stole from you?"

Silver, already on his way to the door, turned back in a whirl of his great, leather-smelling overcoat, spreading his arms (the one broad and muscled, the other angled and metal) wide in theatricality. "My big ol' heart," he declared with overwrought emotion.

"Really." The Captain was unimpressed.

Silver's tragic air held a moment, but then his face darkened by rapid degrees into a deeply cunning, spark-catching smirk.

"You might also say," amended Silver, in a sound that was low and animal, a growl or a purr or something more possessive still. "If you were so inclined, that he…aye, he _captured_ my interest."


	3. Chapter 3

**Stop In the Name of Love (Before I Break Your Window, Come Into Your House, and Beat the Hell Out of You)**

* * *

"I think we got all those posters torn down early enough," Mrs. Hawkins said with pale conviction. The lights were low in the Benbow, and she looked even paler under them. "I don't think you should go out, though."

"…Okay."

"Okay."

Sarah blew out a sigh, scrubbed back wayward knots of hair, and began to look around for the apron she'd discarded. Jim watched her silently, bowed over the kitchen counter. Guilt burrowed deep into Jim's gut. Would she still open the eatery tomorrow? The rigid tension of her neck said she certainly wouldn't sleep. They were both exhausted, but wide awake.

Sarah paced around the dining area, searching aimlessly. Her apron strings hung out of her hand. Jim shifted.

"Mom, your apron's right—"

But the words died back into his mouth. He dropped his head. The apron wasn't the problem. Jim had never known how to comfort her, not even when his father had left. He wished he could do more, but he never knew of what.

Jim dug his knuckles into his forehead. _Evaluate_ , the academy professors would reprimand him. _Evaluate, plan, and_ then _execute._

Evaluate. Right.

Montressor was primarily Ave and Can. For a human criminal, the kingdom might not have even bothered to post warrants in the upper lofts of the town. The Ave in Montressor didn't care much for anything under their beaks, after all. But the Can were a social community. All it would take was one missed poster, and half the town would know by tomorrow.

Plan? Kick the king's ass for this stunt. With a snarl, he shoved off the counter. His teeth ground all the way up the stairs, into his pajamas, and into his bed. After a while, Sarah knocked softly on his door. Jim sat up.

"Mom?"

She let herself in, smoothed the covers Jim had rumpled, and sank down onto the side of his bed. She touched his cheek, and at first did not speak.

"I just wanted you to know," she said eventually. "That I do believe you, Jim. I believe you didn't do anything. Or at least, not this time."

Tentatively, Jim negotiated an arm around her shoulders. She allowed him. "I know you believe in me. I really do. Everything's gonna be fine, I promise. This is all a misunderstanding, and once I give the king a talking to—I mean, _talk to_ the king, it'll all get cleared up. I won't throw away the academy or anything else we've worked for. I promise."

Sarah squeezed his knuckles. "I believe you didn't do it," she said again, and then gathered up her skirt and slipped away. Her fingers left him like a chill. Jim slept that night as best he could in his childhood bed, surrounded by the comforting fortress of his textbooks (and the fairy tales buried under them).

 _I promise_.

The next morning, Jim rose when it was still gray. He packed his meals (at least six, he was a growing boy), hugged his mother in a _not-saying-goodbye_ way, tucked his shirt in and smoothed his lapels—the academy uniform was well-respected, and its blues and whites distracted from the wearer's face.

He also left a tin of fertilizer nestled in Mrs. Robin's tulips. She could swear as loudly as she liked, to as many _neighbors_ as she liked, that she hadn't the faintest clue where it came from. But she'd still make "too many" cookies next time she baked to bring the Hawkinses. They understood each other, Jim and Mrs. Robin.

Jim would be looking forward to her secret recipe. But first, Jim had to get this whole theft business knocked out of the way. Who knew, if Jim wasted any time, the king might manage to accuse poor old Mrs. Robin of grand larceny next.

Jim tromped out with his bag along the steep coast of Montressor, directly opposite the way to the kingdom capital. There was only one way to reach the capital without being seen, after all, and that was the tunnels.

It was not exactly a secret there were tunnels below Argentum. It was how cities got their water, sewage, and ore shipments. Ancient pipework was bedded beneath every inch of the kingdom, and it plunged miles deeper than miners could dig. They were the taproots of their entire civilization, older than any tree in Argentum.

But of all that pipework, Argentum only could use a tenth. Every now and again, some over-curious bright spark stumbled over one of Flint's discreet locking mechanisms—a panel buried beneath the sand or on the side of a cliff, etched with glyphs and odd indentions. Getting one open was a task most never dared to approach. Scholars who tried could really do nothing but suck away royal funds and scratch their heads.

Jim was one of the bright sparks. He had tickled _this_ lock open when he was only eight. It had taken him half an hour. He had ventured inside it for the first time when he was thirteen. He had been lost for half a day in the maze beyond, but his mother didn't know that part.

Squinting through the early sea fog, he followed the line of the trees. He dragged his hand along the algae-rocks until he reached the point they buckled from wall to pile. Jim knelt, and shuffed sand away in great sweeps, scooping his fingers through the damp grit.

"Come _on_. Don't get coy."

His fingernails struck an edge.

"Hello, there," Jim breathed. "Did you miss me?"

He scooted backwards, dragging armfuls of sand with him. Glint by glint, the design of the panel began to reveal itself. Flint's markings appeared, squirreling at odd angles over the brass just like Jim remembered. He felt along until he found the borders of the square passageway, and pressed his thumbs to the seams. He counted three seconds until the heat-sensitive mechanisms hummed to life and released.

Jim blew stray dust away. His fingers danced over panel's accoutrements: three studs twisted in sequence, three bars slid free along hinges. All of Flint's locks had a rhythm to them, a playfulness and a challenge. Jim flipped the hinged pieces, checked them back to their original positions, and clicked them firmly into place.

The lock whirred, and debated. Then it gave a satisfied whistle, came apart into panels, and folded smartly out of Jim's sight. A draft of cool air blasted his hair from his face. He grinned into the yawning, dark hole.

"Good to see you, too."

Jim heaved his bag over his shoulder and shimmied his feet over the chamber's lip. It was only big enough for a boy about Jim's size, and his boots found no ladder rungs—there were only crumbling cubbies slotted into the side for stepping and grabbing.

An athlete Jim may not be, but he had certainly grown up with a history of getting into things. Trusting his momentum, he clambered down and down into the black.

* * *

 **Cheers! It's back, baby.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Stop in the Name of Love (Before I Break Your Window, Come Into Your House, and Beat the Hell Out of You)**

* * *

Jim's boots clanged down to the floor of the tunnel. The panel folded shut over Jim's head— _one, three, thirty_ , the same interval it always waited. The spot of weak sunlight blinked closed. Jim sought for the slick wall of the chamber, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

Faint greenish lights pulsed in claustrophobic stripes ahead of him, outlining the curves of the pipe to Jim's right and left. Spitting on the tang of stale metal, Jim adjusted the strap of his bag and ventured through. Immediately, a series of overhead lamps blazed on in isolated sequence above Jim. He ducked and winced. He always forgot about those.

Shadows slept heavy along the floor of the tunnel, veering down niches and narrow offshoots. They all could have been dead-ends, and Jim wouldn't have known from the darkness.

As he walked, the lamps died behind him and flickered on again in front. The metal floor didn't have enough give for pressure sensors, and the lights never followed anything Jim threw, so they couldn't be activated by movement. His best guess was a heat sensor, set up in the walls. Jim peered keenly into every crevice, just in case he spotted monitors.

The process behind Flint's work was very shrouded. No one knew exactly how or why Flint had gone about his inventing. He had revolutionized hundreds upon hundreds of components the Argentum kingdom used for steamwork and electric machinery today, and cranked out whole stacks of blueprints for automatons and architecture. But the one thing unclear was what exactly most of his inventions _did_.

Most of Argentum's current technology was lucky guesswork on the behalf of scholars. Some of Jim's professors at the academy had their names attached to basic water-purifying systems or minor hydraulics.

Jim, of course, had plans much bigger than that. He had a whole collection of scrapings from the gears and scaffolding down here cluttered in his room to prove it. He rapped one knuckle affectionately to an inactive boiler.

The sound rang up to the ceiling, where something…skittered. Something _large._ Jim clutched the strap of his bag.

"H-Hello?" He cleared his throat and tried for a gruffer voice. "Who's there?"

Something skittered again. Metal plating creaked. A shape flashed through the light, just for an instant. A sibilant rasp, like a breath through a mask, raised hairs on the back of Jim's neck.

" _Got you, boy._ "

Jim hurled himself to the floor moments before a snapping claw could clamp through his neck. He rolled to the side and whipped his head around, trying to track the movement.

" _Inssssolent_." The shape darted away. A thin chuckle rattled out of the pipes, somewhere, nowhere. "It always is best when prey comes to me."

Jim scrambled back as a body contorted off the ceiling. A great clattering shook the floor of the tunnel. First Jim saw two serrated pincers, then two needle-legs, then two more legs, and then two _more_ , delivering a hideous black body with an armored shine into the light. The face leering atop it was red-mandibled and twisted.

Jim's breath caught. It was one of the Ara. There were fewer of those left than there were humans _._ No wonder Jim hadn't seen him coming-an Ara was too cold-blooded to activate heat-sensor lights.

"Huh." Jim found himself saying things, as he all too often did when in trouble."So did you wake up like that, or did you have to smash your face into a few shovels first?"

The Ara gave a bubbling hiss. "First it knows about Flint's tunnels, and now it thinks its funny," it drooled. "Maybe _that's_ why the Silver King wants you. Can't imagine what else he'd need with a mouthy human brat."

"The Silver King? Argentum?" Jim scooted slowly away, putting his back to the wall. He would rather have nowhere to run than an Ara who could get behind him. "So you're here to arrest me? Sure is nice to be wanted."

"Don't insssult me, boy _._ A blood-hunter makes no arrests."

The claws clicked meaningfully together. Jim's blood hummed fast. Even if he made it back to the entrance, this creature would overtake him on the footholds in seconds. He might have done too good a job traveling unseen. He might disappear just like his father.

"That doesn't sound like a good business strategy," Jim said weakly. "You might want to reconsider."

He groped behind him. There had to be something loose in the piping, something he could brandish or throw. Even a screw. His hand knocked against something solid—a section of capped pipe. The other tubing was tucked neatly against the walls. Why did this one poke out? The Ara slunk closer.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jim needed more time to think. "Speaking of business. Don't you…don't you want to know what I stole? If you kill me, you'll never get it back. Bet the king wouldn't be happy, then!"

The Ara paused. "Never get it back? That might irritate the pompoussss king. But maybe it would irritate him more if _I_ held onto it…."

A current, barely there, thrummed beneath the clustered tubes. Was something still running in these pipes? _Water, coolant, steam, chemicals—_ Jim ran through all the possibilities. If it was being kept in the machine, it was probably _supposed_ to be kept there. But then, Jim's head was probably supposed to be kept on his body.

Jim took a deep breath. _Please don't be sewage._ He yanked the cap off the pipe.

The metal shrieked and a whole flood of pinkish goop exploded outwards. Jim dove out of the way and bolted as sludge filled the passage. He heard the blood-hunter's savage swearing behind him, and looked back to see the Ara yanking his many boots free of the slime.

 _Got him_. Jim almost grinned. But when he glanced back again, a thrill of horror weakened his knees. The Ara already advanced on Jim in an oily crawl. He gained speed rapidly, and his features set into something fearsome. His vermillion eyes gleamed closer with every second.

All Jim could do was wrench his head forward and run harder. He poured his adrenaline and anger into every step. _Stupid me, stupid Flint, stupid king—_

Suddenly, a line of red slashed through the darkness far away. " _Scroop!_ "

The bellow shook the corridor. A metal bolt soared past Jim's face, and the Ara howled behind him. A flare of indoor lights lit a lop-sided figure, striding from the far end of the corridor. Jim skidded to a stop, tripping onto his palms. He shook his hair out of his face and stared up at the newcomer.

A massive, dun-furred Fel in a long coat took up the width of the tunnel, a scowl of warning on his face. An eye of vibrant crimson lit up one half of his skull in artificial fire, and a bulky mechanical arm pointed the tip of a crossbow's bolt past Jim's shoulder. Behind Jim, the Ara panted and cradled the joint of one leg.

"Well, well," spat the Ara. "If it isn't the bloodiest of the huntersss. Up to your old tricks, I ssssee, Silver."

The towering Fel glowered, ruby eye crackling with heat. "I already got my warning shot off, Scroop. Don't go making me get _business-like_ with you."

The Ara tsked. The Fel looked down at Jim and gave a broad, if strained, smile. "My mercenary friend here is goin' about things _all_ the wrong way, I think. Sorry about all o' this, young Hawkins."

 _Mercenary friend?_ Jim's eyebrow went up. "Great. So you're after me, too?"

" _After_ you?" The Fel scratched at his chin. "Well, now, I'm not sure o' that. I'm just here to getcha to the capital, where ya ought to be."

He shrugged disarmingly, while Jim squinted in suspicion. "Right."

The mercenary coughed. "In any case. Ol' Silver will be takin' it from _here_ , Scroop, so you'd best be gone afore I put another pin through your dainty legs. You get me?"

Scroop the Ara faltered, blustering and sputtering. "You damned trickster, Ssssilver—"

"I said, you _get me_?"

Silver's clockwork arm ticked the bolt back.

The Ara put up his pincers. "Fine. _Fine_. You win this round, cat, but expect me back for _negotiationsss_ soon."

Scroop scuttered off into one of the byways and vanished into the bowels of Flint's machines. The pink ooze began dissipating into thick steam.

"Be careful with Scroop," the Fel muttered, as the Ara's footsteps prowled out of their hearing. "He's got a _real_ nasty habit of bringing his bounties in dead."

"There's a bounty on me now?" Jim groaned. "Fantastic. The king sure has his pants in a twist over this thing I didn't steal."

The mercenary coughed again. "Pardon. Well, I'm sure that's all a misunderstanding. People do just about anything if they think money's involved, you know."

"Like the tariffs on steamworking pipes," Jim grumbled.

"Aye, what's that?" The mercenary's ear twitched and swiveled. "Not fond o' the, er, tariff, are ya?"

Jim huffed. "Well, if the king's so reluctant to give away Flint's designs, he should just draw up his own."

The mercenary coughed _again_ , this time into his elbow, and for several seconds. Jim began to wonder if he was chronically ill. "Pardon me. _Pardon_ me. That's an interesting point you make there, lad. You be sure to tell the king that, now, once you meet him."

"Oh, I will," Jim said. "But how do I know you're really going to take me there? After _that_ psycho, you expect me to trust you? You could lead me into one of Flint's traps, or just slit my throat in some secret hideout down here."

"I don't expect you to trust me just yet. Ya haven't even met me properly, though I've certainly gotten acquainted with you on yer poster." Silver winked, his red eye cooling to gold, and waved his crossbow. "Name's John Silver. Long John Silver, to be precise, but we'll call me Silver and you Jimbo."

Jim leaned back, not sure if the lazy humor was welcoming or infuriating. "That's not my name."

"O' course. And Silver's not mine."

Before Jim could respond, a bizarre chirruping noise pierce through the air. Both Jim and Silver wheeled around to see where it had come from. The chamber was empty. But on the tunnel floor, the last intact blob of pink gel wriggled and bubbled.

Silver smartly leveled his crossbow. Jim shoved avidly around to see what was happening. The bubbling sped to a boil, frothing—and then abruptly fell flat. Jim and Silver looked at each other.

"What in the name o'—"

With two wet pops, a pair of wide, white eyes blinked from the mass.


End file.
